Brian Paddick, the police commander moved from his job last week after tabloid revelations about his private life, is a victim of institutional homophobia, according to the body representing Britain's gay police officers.

The Lesbian and Gay Police Association claims Paddick was subject to the same 'drip, drip, drip' of prejudice which Sir William Macpherson found that black police officers faced during his 1999 inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

'It's exactly the same as institutional racism,' said Inspector Stephen Warwick of LAGPA, which has almost 1,000 members.

'You're made to feel less part of the organisation and less valued as an officer. It's day to day stuff, but it gets incremental. You're just made to feel you don't count.'

Paddick was moved from Lambeth, a notorious London policing hotspot since the Brixton riots two decades ago, after a former boyfriend told the Mail on Sunday that the policeman had smoked cannabis in a flat they shared. James Renolleau, 36, also claimed they had sex in public. The paper paid £100,000 for his story.

Paddick attracted controversy by launching a pilot project to downgrade the prosecution of cannabis users to concentrate on dealers in harder drugs. A report published last Wednesday found that this had cut street crime in Lambeth and saved 2,500 hours of police form filling.

He was also accused of seeming to condone anarchy on an internet website.

Community groups in Lambeth will hold a public meeting on Tuesday evening in support of Paddick. Harriet Smith of the Lambeth Crime Prevention Trust said: 'Brian Paddick is one of the most radical and innovative police officers I've ever worked with. Everybody in the borough wants him back.'

A spokesman for Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens pledged last night: 'If these charges are not proved, Commander Paddick will return to his duties.'